Please Ignore Vera Dietz
AS King
Publisher: Listening Library
Release Date: April 26, 2011
Narrator: Lynde Houck
Source: Won from Heidi

Rating: 5 stars

Vera’s spent her whole life secretly in love with her best friend, Charlie Kahn. And over the years she’s kept a lot of his secrets. Even after he betrayed her. Even after he ruined everything. 

So when Charlie dies in dark circumstances, Vera knows a lot more than anyone—the kids at school, his family, even the police. But will she emerge to clear his name? Does she even want to?

Edgy and gripping, Please Ignore Vera Dietz is an unforgettable novel: smart, funny, dramatic, and always surprising.

I have a confession to make. This is my first A.S. King book. I had always heard her books were good, but something about them always made me think they were not for me. I absolutely and completely LOVED Please Ignore Vera Dietz.

The set up of this book is just brilliant. You have the present, told from Vera’s point of view, but also history of Vera’s life, words from Ken Dietz (Vera’s dad), and also from Charlie (who is dead). I loved it. It wasn’t consistently one person or the other, and I never knew what would come up next.

This is by far the best audio I have ever listened to. Lynde Houck and the other people who narrated Ken and Charlie were just brilliant. All the voices were very unique, and it was so easy to differentiate between all the characters. I definitely want to seek out more audios where Lynde Houck is the narrator now!

I loved the story – it was witty and just plain different. It has a serious nature at heart but AS King manages to input all these different types of stories around that. There were absolutely hilarious parts, the heart-wrenching parts, to plain sad moments, and the moments where it is just interesting. I loved hearing the past and understanding why the present is happening from that.

The characters were all really great. I loved how strong of a character Vera was. I did have a bit of a waver in my judgement of her character towards the end, but that quickly resolved itself. James played a more minor role, but I really adored him. The other characters I found to be quite interesting. Ken Dietz was a character I found a hard time connecting with him during the present times, but once I would heard his words from Ken Dietz it made me understand him so much more as a character.

This is a book I will now be shoving in the hands of all. It was brilliant and I loved it. I now need to go pick up AS King’s other books, and read them ASAP. If Please Ignore Vera Dietz was any measure as to how great her books are, I will be sure to love the others.